News tagged with biological activity

Scientists have discovered an enzyme used in nature to make powerful chemicals from catnip to a cancer drug, vinblastine. The discovery opens up the prospect of producing these chemicals cheaply and efficiently.

(Phys.org)—A new University of Maryland study of worms that reproduce without a mate shows that not only have these creatures lost their mojo in the dating game of evolution, they've lost thousands of genes ...

(Phys.org)—Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered the first selective inhibitors of an important set of enzymes. The new inhibitors, and chemical probes based on them, now can be used to study ...

(Phys.org)—Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress as it is commonly known, made history back in 2000 by becoming the first plant to have its entire genetic code read by scientists, contributing to what i ...

Biologists from New York University have uncovered new ways our biological clock's neurons use electrical activity to help keep behavioral rhythms in order. The findings, which appear in the journal Current Biology, also p ...

Biologists at New York University have uncovered one way that biological clocks control neuronal activity—a discovery that sheds new light on sleep-wake cycles and offers potential new directions for research into therapies ...

(Phys.org)—The sorcerer's apprentice started a water-carrying system, but couldn't stop it, and soon he was up to his neck in water, and trouble. Living cells have a better design: When they activate a ...

(Phys.org)—Mathematical models developed by scientists at the University of Bristol are providing new insights into why the placebo effect exists and when it should occur. Their research is published today ...

Some RNA molecules spend time in a restful state akin to hibernation rather than automatically carrying out their established job of delivering protein-building instructions in cells, new research suggests.

Researchers reporting online on July 26 in Current Biology have for the first time shown that they can control the behavior of monkeys by using pulses of blue light to very specifically activate particular brain cells. The fi ...

Humans, fish and frogs share neural circuits responsible for a diversity of social behavior, from flashy mating displays to aggression and monogamy, that have existed for more than 450 million years, biologists at The University ...

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then it shouldn't be surprising that their neural circuits differ. In research published today in the journal Current Biology, researchers have used dramatic change ...

(Phys.org) -- In many biological and pathological processes, glycosidase enzymes attack glycosidic bonds in carbohydrates, glycoproteins, and glycolipids. The ability to modify or block these processes by ...

A collaboration between Lehigh University physicists and University of Miami biologists addresses an important fundamental question in basic cell biology: How do living cells figure out when and where to grow?